Hi, I’m new and this is my first post.
My mum had the definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in February 2020 after having the tests at the end of January. Her deteriorating memory had been an issue for a long time. In 2018 I took over collecting mums’ pension from Post Office. The pin number she’d had since she’d retired was just forgotten, and it had to be reset.
In February 2020 whilst withdrawing her pension I noticed that her pension for that week wasn’t showing on her balance. I thought that maybe it was a system fault and the payment was late. The next week the same thing happened. I called the Post Office to find mums pension had been diverted into a different bank account. I asked mum to ask sister1 if she had any knowledge of this. Sister1 told my mum she knew nothing about it. I texted my sister to say that if she didn’t know anything about it then a fraud had taken place and something needed to be done, like reporting it to the police. This is when she came clean and admitted she had done it.
Sister2 had taken a look through mum's Post Office statements, had seen I’d on occasion taken extra monies for mum, and had decided that I was taking it for myself. Rather than speak to me they both got together, went behind my back, diverted her pension into a joint account that sister1 had with her, lied to me about it and low-key accused me of stealing from her (which sister1 said she wasn’t doing, but she really was)
As sisters, we aren’t all that close. I left home at 19, married at 20, and had 4 children. Both my sisters are single mums. At one time we all used to live in the same town 5 mins from each other. Sister2 ended up moving back in with mum and dad numerous times when things with her latest fella fell apart. She ended up moving back to the town where my parents lived with her daughter. Sister1 also moved back to the same town, very close to where mum lived after her son moved in with his partner. My sisters ended up working at the same place whilst I was unemployed and looking for a job and still living in the neighboring town some two and a half miles away from where I grew up and where my mum and sisters live. My dad passed away in 2010.
Since the incident with my mums’ pension, I’ve had hardly any contact with either of my sisters. Sister2s behavior has always been indifferent towards me. Sister1 became distant. Looking back, I realise now that over the past 2 years, they have set out to purposely exclude me from anything regarding mum. Any appointments she’s had I’ve found out later about. Rather than ask me if I’d take her to appointments as I was available, they would take time off work to accompany her themselves instead. I wouldn’t be told the outcomes of these appointments, I’d only get something vague from mum about what had happened. Maybe I was complacent in my attitude and I should have spoken up more. I did try and broach the issue with mum but she would tell me that it was best to let sister1 deal with things because mum didn’t want sister1 upset. I didn’t want to cause problems for mum.
Then the week before Christmas mum slipped on some ice whilst out on a trip and fell. Mums’ friend wanted to call sister1 but mum said no, she didn’t want to be told off by her. I saw mum the day after her wrist was very swollen and bruised. She’d been to the local chemist. His advice was to take painkillers, use a compression bandage and if it wasn’t looking any better in 48 hours then call 111. I called 111 when I was there, and I spoke to a lovely nurse, who after getting all the details gave the same advice as the chemist. My mum called sister1 that evening to tell her what she’d done.
Two days later I received a nasty text from sister1 asking me why the hell I hadn’t taken mum for an x-ray, saying that I probably couldn’t be arsed and that I had no duty of care. I was upset and couldn’t bring myself to respond to her and get drawn into a confrontation. I called mum and we talked about what sister1 had said. My lovely mum said to me ‘don’t worry about it, she’s always nagging that’s just what she does, it goes in one ear and out the other and I just nod my head and agree with what she tells me’ she then blew a raspberry. I saw her the day after and the swelling had gone down significantly on her wrist. She spent Christmas with my sisters as she has always done for a good many years. My mother-in-law used to spend Christmas with us but she’s gone into a specialist dementia care home as she has vascular dementia and can’t take care of her herself anymore. My husband is struggling to cope with his mum’s condition and hasn’t really responded very well, but that’s a whole different story.
Anyway, the following week I went to see mum and she wasn’t in. I let myself in to just check (I once called around to see mum mid-morning to find the door locked and the blinds down. She was still in bed asleep, scared me a little though when I could see the shape of her body in her bed knowing I had to go in and check.) I assumed mum was out with her 2 friends one of which she’s been friends with since the 1960s. I wasn’t worried. I was due to start a new job the following week and didn’t know what my shifts would be so I couldn’t pin down a time and day to visit just then. I phoned on New Year’s Day and got no reply. I thought that she was spending New Year with sister1 as well as Christmas. I started my new job and in the following weeks called around twice more to find mum wasn’t in and still could get no reply on the phone. In hindsight, I should have done something about not being able to get in contact with mum before, but I honestly thought that if anything bad had happened sister1 would at least have the heart to let me know, really, I should have looked at her past actions, but I didn’t want to think the worst of her.
My home life hasn’t been easy for a few years now. My husband hasn’t worked since 2007 because of health conditions. In the past few years, his depression gets the better of him more often than not even though he’s on anti-depressants. He takes tramadol for his pain and in total takes 13 tablets a day. He has bad days more often than good days with his health and mobility. He gets anxious if I’m away from the house for longer than I say I’ll be, he can be difficult and makes being around him hard work, I try my best to make sure I don’t antagonize him. I started my first job in years in September 2022 and he made it very clear he didn’t like me working at this job. He wasn’t happy with the late evening shifts I was rotated to do. He likes routine and my shifts upset him. He built up the pressure week after week for me to leave, I lasted 3 months before I left, and I did have another job lined up which I’m four weeks into now. The shifts are better.
The latest installment in this saga happened last week. Sister1 texted me and said they needed mums house key from me as they needed to give it to carers. As I only visit her once a week, they didn’t think there was any point in me having one. I was to put it in an envelope and post it through mum’s letterbox. I was annoyed but held off firing a text back. Sister1 sent me the same message on Facebook by messenger, I don’t really use Facebook and didn’t see this message until much later. Over the weekend my youngest daughter who still lives at home got a message from sister2 via Instagram for her to get me to read my messages, which I thought was out of order. Sister2 tried the same thing with my daughter on Facebook, my daughter blocked sister2. The next day sister2s daughter began trying to send the same message to my daughter via Instagram and Facebook and later in the same day tried this with her twin sister who was visiting us for Sunday lunch. My daughter told her to stop messaging her as it was harassment and she didn’t want to be drawn into their drama. That evening I sent a text to sister1 asking politely if she could fill me in regarding mum’s care plan seeing that they’d arranged for carers to call on her. Sister1 messaged me the next morning. She told me that she and sister2 had a lasting POA together for mums’ health and financers, and I would not be involved so I should leave the key as asked.
Not one word from sister1 about where my mum is. I want to see mum; can she stop me? I don’t know what to do next. I really don’t want to cause a fuss and upset mum. I’m trying to be calm about things, I would just like some answers but I think I may get nowhere with this. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thank you.
My mum had the definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in February 2020 after having the tests at the end of January. Her deteriorating memory had been an issue for a long time. In 2018 I took over collecting mums’ pension from Post Office. The pin number she’d had since she’d retired was just forgotten, and it had to be reset.
In February 2020 whilst withdrawing her pension I noticed that her pension for that week wasn’t showing on her balance. I thought that maybe it was a system fault and the payment was late. The next week the same thing happened. I called the Post Office to find mums pension had been diverted into a different bank account. I asked mum to ask sister1 if she had any knowledge of this. Sister1 told my mum she knew nothing about it. I texted my sister to say that if she didn’t know anything about it then a fraud had taken place and something needed to be done, like reporting it to the police. This is when she came clean and admitted she had done it.
Sister2 had taken a look through mum's Post Office statements, had seen I’d on occasion taken extra monies for mum, and had decided that I was taking it for myself. Rather than speak to me they both got together, went behind my back, diverted her pension into a joint account that sister1 had with her, lied to me about it and low-key accused me of stealing from her (which sister1 said she wasn’t doing, but she really was)
As sisters, we aren’t all that close. I left home at 19, married at 20, and had 4 children. Both my sisters are single mums. At one time we all used to live in the same town 5 mins from each other. Sister2 ended up moving back in with mum and dad numerous times when things with her latest fella fell apart. She ended up moving back to the town where my parents lived with her daughter. Sister1 also moved back to the same town, very close to where mum lived after her son moved in with his partner. My sisters ended up working at the same place whilst I was unemployed and looking for a job and still living in the neighboring town some two and a half miles away from where I grew up and where my mum and sisters live. My dad passed away in 2010.
Since the incident with my mums’ pension, I’ve had hardly any contact with either of my sisters. Sister2s behavior has always been indifferent towards me. Sister1 became distant. Looking back, I realise now that over the past 2 years, they have set out to purposely exclude me from anything regarding mum. Any appointments she’s had I’ve found out later about. Rather than ask me if I’d take her to appointments as I was available, they would take time off work to accompany her themselves instead. I wouldn’t be told the outcomes of these appointments, I’d only get something vague from mum about what had happened. Maybe I was complacent in my attitude and I should have spoken up more. I did try and broach the issue with mum but she would tell me that it was best to let sister1 deal with things because mum didn’t want sister1 upset. I didn’t want to cause problems for mum.
Then the week before Christmas mum slipped on some ice whilst out on a trip and fell. Mums’ friend wanted to call sister1 but mum said no, she didn’t want to be told off by her. I saw mum the day after her wrist was very swollen and bruised. She’d been to the local chemist. His advice was to take painkillers, use a compression bandage and if it wasn’t looking any better in 48 hours then call 111. I called 111 when I was there, and I spoke to a lovely nurse, who after getting all the details gave the same advice as the chemist. My mum called sister1 that evening to tell her what she’d done.
Two days later I received a nasty text from sister1 asking me why the hell I hadn’t taken mum for an x-ray, saying that I probably couldn’t be arsed and that I had no duty of care. I was upset and couldn’t bring myself to respond to her and get drawn into a confrontation. I called mum and we talked about what sister1 had said. My lovely mum said to me ‘don’t worry about it, she’s always nagging that’s just what she does, it goes in one ear and out the other and I just nod my head and agree with what she tells me’ she then blew a raspberry. I saw her the day after and the swelling had gone down significantly on her wrist. She spent Christmas with my sisters as she has always done for a good many years. My mother-in-law used to spend Christmas with us but she’s gone into a specialist dementia care home as she has vascular dementia and can’t take care of her herself anymore. My husband is struggling to cope with his mum’s condition and hasn’t really responded very well, but that’s a whole different story.
Anyway, the following week I went to see mum and she wasn’t in. I let myself in to just check (I once called around to see mum mid-morning to find the door locked and the blinds down. She was still in bed asleep, scared me a little though when I could see the shape of her body in her bed knowing I had to go in and check.) I assumed mum was out with her 2 friends one of which she’s been friends with since the 1960s. I wasn’t worried. I was due to start a new job the following week and didn’t know what my shifts would be so I couldn’t pin down a time and day to visit just then. I phoned on New Year’s Day and got no reply. I thought that she was spending New Year with sister1 as well as Christmas. I started my new job and in the following weeks called around twice more to find mum wasn’t in and still could get no reply on the phone. In hindsight, I should have done something about not being able to get in contact with mum before, but I honestly thought that if anything bad had happened sister1 would at least have the heart to let me know, really, I should have looked at her past actions, but I didn’t want to think the worst of her.
My home life hasn’t been easy for a few years now. My husband hasn’t worked since 2007 because of health conditions. In the past few years, his depression gets the better of him more often than not even though he’s on anti-depressants. He takes tramadol for his pain and in total takes 13 tablets a day. He has bad days more often than good days with his health and mobility. He gets anxious if I’m away from the house for longer than I say I’ll be, he can be difficult and makes being around him hard work, I try my best to make sure I don’t antagonize him. I started my first job in years in September 2022 and he made it very clear he didn’t like me working at this job. He wasn’t happy with the late evening shifts I was rotated to do. He likes routine and my shifts upset him. He built up the pressure week after week for me to leave, I lasted 3 months before I left, and I did have another job lined up which I’m four weeks into now. The shifts are better.
The latest installment in this saga happened last week. Sister1 texted me and said they needed mums house key from me as they needed to give it to carers. As I only visit her once a week, they didn’t think there was any point in me having one. I was to put it in an envelope and post it through mum’s letterbox. I was annoyed but held off firing a text back. Sister1 sent me the same message on Facebook by messenger, I don’t really use Facebook and didn’t see this message until much later. Over the weekend my youngest daughter who still lives at home got a message from sister2 via Instagram for her to get me to read my messages, which I thought was out of order. Sister2 tried the same thing with my daughter on Facebook, my daughter blocked sister2. The next day sister2s daughter began trying to send the same message to my daughter via Instagram and Facebook and later in the same day tried this with her twin sister who was visiting us for Sunday lunch. My daughter told her to stop messaging her as it was harassment and she didn’t want to be drawn into their drama. That evening I sent a text to sister1 asking politely if she could fill me in regarding mum’s care plan seeing that they’d arranged for carers to call on her. Sister1 messaged me the next morning. She told me that she and sister2 had a lasting POA together for mums’ health and financers, and I would not be involved so I should leave the key as asked.
Not one word from sister1 about where my mum is. I want to see mum; can she stop me? I don’t know what to do next. I really don’t want to cause a fuss and upset mum. I’m trying to be calm about things, I would just like some answers but I think I may get nowhere with this. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thank you.
